[MD] Eudaimonia

[Ian Glendinning]

Thanks for picking up that link Ron ...
(I've forwarded to Sam - who no longer lurks on MD)

I'll need to read it again myself.
Ian

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 8:39 PM, X Acto<xacto at rocketmail.com> wrote:
> Eudaimonia the ancient Greek ideal of actively pursuing excellence or "human flourishing"
> Was touched upon by Sam Norton some years back in his essay
> entitled:
> The Eudaimonic MoQ:
> A proposal for reconceiving the fourth level
> Sam Norton - April 2003
>
> It seemed Sam was troubled by Bodvars SOL immediately, coloring and driving his
> re-interpretation and clarification of the 4th level. But that has little to do with his attempt
> at the association of Eudaimonia with intellect. After recently arriving at the conclusion
> of the parallel between the Zen Koan and the Socratic method with a hearty re-reading
> of Plato's Socratic dialogs, I have come to the conclusion that Sam was close but
> misread Plato.
> Sam explains:
> "The excellences which were enumerated above were considered by different thinkers, and were each considered to be a part of the good life. Until Socrates came along.
> The problem is that attachment to these various excellences - like loving a specific
> person; spending time developing a musical skill; delight in bodily achievement -
> were subject to change and decay over time, and consequently, those who spent time
> devoted to such activities exposed themselves to the pain of loss. And
> the pain of loss suggested that these excellences weren't quite such a
> constituent part of the good life after all. Socrates (as presented by Plato,
> especially in the Republic) argued that this pain and loss could not be a part of
> the good life (could not be part of eudaimonia) and that the pursuit of the good
> life needed to travel in a different direction - the life of the intellect. It was
> through the development of the intellect, and contemplation of intellectual values,
> pre-eminently mathematics, that the good life was achieved. All that was associated
> with emotional qualities (especially love) was to be repudiated in
> order to achieve a state of unsullied contemplation of the eternal Forms."
>
> Socrates valued the love of wisdom above all else, this was Eudaimonia.
> The love of wisdom has no attachments and requires a lifetime of practice
> this "desire" was the highest good.
>
> " Aristotle seems never to have understood what Socrates was doing, as Plato presents him,
> which shows most obviously in the difference between Socrates' robust conception of dialectic
> and the feeble and relatively trivial analogue of that as it appears in Aristotle. The root
> of their difference was in the logical wedge which Aristotle introduced by distinguishing
> epistêmê from technê. In Socratic-Platonic usage "epistêmê" expresses a craft conception
> of knowledge, and epistêmê and technê have the same logical grammar, whereas in Aristotle
> craft is relegated to an inferior status because it involves production. This makes it
> impossible for the virtues to be treated as crafts, and thus disconnects sophia from
> technê, too. Epistêmê is associated primarily with formally (syllogistically) structured
> understanding rather than regarded as a know how of argumentation, and sophia is
> identified with epistêmê plus nous (intuition of the truth of
>  first premises). Thus begins the tradition of conceiving science as the systematically
> arranged product of inquiry rather than the critically controlled process of inquiry,
> and with that the implicit canonization of epistemologically conceived theory of
> understanding, which is concerned with the principles of assessment of putative
> products of inquiry to ascertain whether or not they truly deserve treatment as
> being knowledge in virtue of their method of derivation". -Joseph Ransdell "Peirce
> and Socratic tradition"
>
> This is a superficial discrepancy in Sams conclusion but bears extreme weight in drawing direct paralells between east/west, science/religion.
>
> Sam concludes:
> I think that the MoQ would benefit from greater clarity about how to characterise the
> fourth level. As it presently stands, it cannot sustain rigorous intellectual scrutiny.
> This paper is an attempt to reformulate the MoQ, around the idea of 'eudaimonia' as
> the governing value of the fourth level, which operates on the 'choosing unit' of the
> autonomous individual. My proposal can be seen in the form of a table here.
> I find this conception to have higher quality than the standard account, and to
> cohere more with the evidence and my own scale of values. I should mention that my
> own scale of values are Christian, and, indeed, I think this 'eudaimonic MoQ' is
> compatible with a Christian faith. Indeed, it gives a good account of why certain
> individuals, the saints, would be surrounded by haloes - the glow of DQ from those
> who have been 'born again' into the fourth level. I think there are also profound
> compatibilities between this account and the mystical path - but that is the subject
> for another paper."
>
> I think Sam concludes rather well and in accordance with the highest intellectual patterns
> and that Eudaimonia is the highest state of desire or love throughout the MoQ's 4 levels.
> That if one aligns  with the highest inorganic patterns in the love of life and the highest
> organic patterns the love of our own bodies of social the love of our fellow human beings
> and intellect the love of wisdom (intellectual notion of Eudaimonia ) human flourishing,
> excellence, happiness is crafted. Socrates stated that this was the preparation for death.
>
> Although Sam and I would differ on the opinion of Christian paralellel vs. Christian misinterpetation
> of Greek philosophy, the ideas remain solid and draw a distinct line between east and west in
> terms of Koan, love/desire, intent and the transcendance of cultural assumptions of "knowledge".
> Met with the mystics aspect and pragmatism, a complete picture may be formed with a total
> concept of MoQ which is supported throughout the human history of civilisation.
>
>
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